January 2010
by Axcent
Summary: 11 January 2010: I should be happy.


**1 January 2010**

Mello came home today at 0200. I was awake. I was making toast.

He came in through the front door with some serious bags under his eyes and a lot of buckles on this big leather jacket weighing him down, but when he heaved the coat off and it clattered on the floor he was just in a t-shirt and jeans like a normal person. He said 'am I having a stroke?', looked at least a little invigorated at the sight of me, and I said he wasn't but he looked bad enough.

'I feel bad enough.' he said.

When we were kids I wanted him to be all mine, and no one else's, but we thought that he would be L and L belongs to the world. Now he isn't L but he's still never home.

I asked him if he wanted any toast and he said not the way I make it. I just eat it dry. I'm sort of illogically in my laziness – I sometimes end up spending hours coding some macro to do something that might have taken, like an hour and a half to do manually, just because I want a shortcut. I also take toast out of the toaster with my bare hands then eat it too hot because I'd rather not make a dish to do. I know it's exasperating. I've just never been good at rituals. You know, setting the table and using a fork and curating an experience. Put the fuel in the tank and let's go! - that's me at the gas station and me in the kitchen both.

'I can make it good.' I said, while he was sighing and walking across the grid of wires with his hand rubbing his eyes. 'We have butter.'

'Then do that.'

I slept most of the rest of the morning and the early afternoon and so did he, and then nothing happened except I said I wished he'd spend more time here and he said I could be a bit selfish. He said it tongue and cheek but I mean... yeah, duh, I can. There's always truth in it when he says anything, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered. Kira comes before Matt, I know that. I still wish he'd just give up all his shit and whatever, just be with me instead.

That's it for today.

**5 January 2010**

He says 'I love you' maybe once a month. He has the privilege of loving me more than anyone ever has, actually of being the only person ever to love me. Maybe if he appreciated that, knew how important he was here, he wouldn't have to work so hard to prove himself elsewhere? I know that isn't fair. Also, I don't want to get stuck thinking, you know, "what if I was enough for him?" and that sort of aimless, needy bullshit.

Anyway, I say 'I love you' every time he leaves just in case it's the last time. I'm a pessimist. I think there's a good chance he'll die young. Like, I'm not putting anything in a 401k, haha.

No, seriously, I would place a bet that he'll die by the end of the year.

He slept here again tonight, and when he tried to shower I remembered that I'd used his towels to clean up some gasoline I'd spilled on the kitchen counter. Sometimes I bring in personal projects, like I was trying to see if I could make some Molotov cocktails to keep in the trunk of my car and drive out to an empty lot sometime and do something with them; just something distracting. He asked why his towels were out of commission and how was I drying off? and I said, 'you know, with the air' and 'none of your concern, just a minor gas spill.'

He wasn't impressed, but I found it funny. I pretended I was covering my eyes while he dried off. He pretended he was still drying off for like two hours and did little chores around the apartment, and it was fun. I was also aware of how much fun it was, and how short lasted it would probably be, so there was a part of me that wasn't in it. I anticipated nostalgia. Two hours of him playfully complaining about how exasperating it was living with a slob while he did the dishes, and I laughed with my fingers over my eyes, sitting on the counter right next to him. It wasn't even sexy. It was like... just fun, just fun we were having together.

We'd be cool normal people. We'd do this again if we had time. It would be our thing. I'd make a little reference to this in like our wedding vows.

And I'm way happier when he's here. I get weird when he leaves, I think I get depressed.

That's all for now.

**6 January 2010**

We went out today. His idea.

When we were kids we were allowed to pop out to the shops and take the bus and all that on the weekends and on Thursdays from 1400 until 1900. I had a stone in the heart when we were pulling our shoes on and going out into the sun today due to the nostalgia. It was a few years ago that we'd have been pulling our shoes on and stepping out into the rain. Mello would have on his black sweatshirt and his trainers. I'd be starting to flick my lighter as soon as we got out the gate. These parallels really hurt me - I really get bothered by them. It's because doing these things now feels like a last ditch effort to act like the selves we used to be while we spiral madly downwards and away from ourselves.

I don't like walking in California at all, and I don't think Mello does, either. He dresses differently when it's just us and today he was looking practical and weather appropriate. I don't know what's badass about sweating or if the Mafia is impressed by his teeth-gritting in the face of extreme leathery heat or if he gets to work and just immediately strips, I – haha – I don't know. But I have another little idea about how normal we'd be if Kira would just have a bloody brain aneurysm and leave us well enough alone. I think he'd wear a tank top and read a book in a folding chair one afternoon out on the pavement in front of our flat while I messed with my car or something, something like that. We'd be under a minor sun and there might be a radio playing. There are a few songs we both know by heart and can sing out loud together. We don't do that ever now, but we would do it if we were regular people. I'd laugh because he can't carry a tune and he'd laugh, too, and give me the finger. Maybe we're outside a house we own, actually, and we have patio furniture for Mello to sit on. Maybe we're in the driveway of our own place irritating the neighbours because our love is so loud.

I was thinking about him reading books and then he said he wanted to go to into a bookshop and I thought about how well I know him. I know him better than anyone ever will, which sort of means he belongs to me. I would never say that to him or to anyone, it's creepy. But I have everything about him in my head and I'm holding onto it. I have his real name and I have his face burned into my corneas like a flash bang.

He shuffled around the shelves and then pulled out a book and stood still to read. It was something really current, really now - some political paperback, something socialist, something about tensions in Mexico with some problem, and I felt myself getting bored even though I wanted to spend this time with him so bad. Yeah, sometimes I just fucking hate myself, seriously. Boredom is like an out of body experience with me, like sleep paralysis, like tripping; I just get out of my head and I'm bored and that's it. I started looking around at the spines of these books looking for colour and trying to get interested so we could share this or something, so I could make myself relate to him through this, but I couldn't do it. I should use this moment to find out what he likes these days beyond the anarchist perspective on - well, on something - that he picked up first. I have this voyeuristic little fantasy where I humanize him back down to being someone I recognise just by knowing what he likes to read these days... but I'm too bored. And I'm thinking, Matt is a fucking hypocrite and an idiot, Matt, do something to make this what you want it to be! Just do something other than sighing and being a drag! Why can't I do that? I want to be a better person but I'm not trying to be. Mello noticed me fidgeting and looked up and asked what I'd rather be doing and I said I didn't know.

I just think this is evidence of our failures in communication. I miss him even when we're sitting on the same couch. I feel this ugly pull in my belly like I'm sick and I want to grab his head and squish it and shake him and ask him who he is and who does he think I am and can we please talk? But I never do shit except sit around, certainly never do anything violent like ask him personal questions.

I feel convenient but unknown. Convenient Matt, sitting at home all day, available, easy, willing, all that. But anyway he's probably feeling the same way because I don't have any other prospects, so he's convenient for me, too. I wonder if he sleeps around and I assume he must. I don't, which I'm sure he knows, because I wouldn't know how or where to find sex except in our apartment when he's here but most importantly because I would never want to. Never. I just love him so much sometimes I want to kill myself over it. Poor Mello. No one wants a partner like me. 'Oh baby, I'm crazy for you!' should only ever mean, like, 'I'm happy with you, but cognizant of your shortcomings, fully aware of the terms of our relationship, and just a stable person you can be with until you aren't' and not, um, 'I will make it completely impossible for you to leave me and not the Pacific fucking Ocean, several fake IDs, and an obvious disregard for my feelings will shake my rabid jaws from your heart as long as it beats', which is the direction I'm coming from. I sometimes feel so ridiculous. These are feelings that don't line up with my image of myself at all. Like I don't think I'm romantic and I don't think I'm that weird, considering. I could be so much worse and have every excuse. But then I flex this obsession and I'm horrified by the scope of myself - all this Matt, deep and going on down forever, all these bits that make me up but they're like patches on a jacket, really incongruent pieces of a dissociate whole, and I feel a little rough around the edges, a little torn and full of holes. I don't look ragged on the outside so that's not the problem, it's something else.

Mello left this afternoon and I said I love you and he said he'd be back very soon.

**7 January 2010**

When I was 14 and Mello left me back in 2004, I moved to London and sold RATs for a living. I sold some girl's webcam and she committed suicide because this naughty video of her was posted everywhere. I know I sold it and it was on the news. Lots of talk about how these people who captured the video and spread it were disgusting, this was a waste of life, it was tragic, she was so pretty, she had heaps of friends, she was only 16 and had her whole life ahead of her.

**9 June 2009**

Mello came while I was asleep. He snuck in and put himself next to me under the comforter, still in his pants. I usually let him exist without taking overmuch notice of him. I sort of take for granted the details of him, is what I mean. I just brush over looking at him because I already know his shape, I guess. I think this is probably normal and not a failure of my character? He always has clean fingernails. I studied him and touched his shoulders and brushed the blonde hairs on his arms with the pads of my fingers and struggled to think of him as human. He could have been dead in the bed. I felt his breath with the back of my hand, humid and sort of gross.

He tells me everything. He tells me that he's kidnapped two people, and he tells me about all the corpses he's looked at. He tells me that he's blown the brains out of men, he tells me about decapitating a guy and being glossy with viscera up to the elbows. He tells me about spitting in faces, pulling hair, poking skin with knives. He tells me that he doesn't care about anything but winning because that's all he has. And yeah, I'm like, he has me, too, hello! But I also think it's pretty awesome that he bitch slaps men who disrespect him and then comes home to me and he's nice to me, like I'm the one who deserves him.

I liked that about him in Wammy's, too. I liked it that he'd kick a ball at some kid's head and never turn on me. It's safe on his side. There's us and then there's everyone else. He has the sort of powerful forward momentum, the sort of unstoppable drive, that destroys everything in it's path to the finish line. But like, I'm always right behind him. Following.

I hope the other people he fucks get hurt.

**10 January 2010**

I was just remembering how when we were like 13 Mello wanted me to tell him if I was gay and I just kept saying I didn't know, I just liked him and that was all. I was looking back on this because we had lunch together today - me on the sofa and him in the armchair, and takeout under the yellow lamp - and while I was trying to make him rub my foot by kicking him in the knees, he said, 'would you let a woman fuck you?'

I was like, 'could she?' and he was like 'of course' so I was like 'I never thought about it' and he said 'well?' as though I was supposed to have decided in the 20 seconds since he brought it up. So I said, 'well, I only care about you and I don't think about my like... sexuality at all.' and he said, 'never?' and I said, 'nah. But I was wondering if you were messing around with whores or something in your clubhouse when you're not here.'

'Why the fuck would I do that, Matt?' he said.

I shrugged, and then he called me an insecure pussy, which... fair enough. Then he went back to work.

**11 January 2010**

I should be happy.

**13 January 2010**

Went to the corner store and saw this beautiful woman. I thought about Mello saying how he knows he's gay and that it's his identity and shit. I was trying to psych myself up into thinking about if I could maybe have sex with her, so I could know my identity, too, and I said 'hi, nice day, huh?'

She said it was a nice day. I bought a sandwich, some beer, cigarettes, and said 'uhuh... you doing anything?' And she said she was so I said 'cool, me too, busy day for me as well.'

She said she had a boyfriend and I said I did too and I felt strongly that we were both lying.

Sometimes I set myself up to fail. Not just in this, whatever this ordeal was supposed to be. Sometimes I just fucking want to punish myself.

Like I do know that I wouldn't want to fuck this woman – I mean, that I wouldn't want to fuck anyone at all. I already know that! It's always just been Mello. I was just trying something. I was sort of fuzzily wondering if I'll just have to kill myself when Mello gets himself shot or blown up or crashes his bike or has a heart attack. Because could I even move on? Could I even stomach moving on and being with someone else? I sure as shit can't be alone, that's for damn sure. I didn't cross the pond and stalk him down because I love being alone.

So when Mello dies, what do I do?

Because I keep thinking, well, we're in love so we'll live forever.

We're in love, so we'll live forever.

At the same time, still thinking about how Mello will die very soon and about how I can't live without him.

I want this to be clearer to me. I want Mello to come home today so I know he's alive right now so I know if I have more time to figure it out.

**15 January 2010**

Sirens all day today. Just non-stop police cars under the windowsill, ambulances in the distance flashing. I was feeling jumpy just because the sound is so off-putting.

L wanted us to be detectives. I mean, the whole reason I was put up at Wammy's was so I could learn to be a great detective... but man I just hate the idea of policework.

**16 January 2010**

Woke up and the house was quiet. It was too early for me to be up usually but I had this smoky grip on the back of my throat and wanted to get a glass of water before going back to sleep. I went down the hallway in my bare feet, into the dingy kitchen where there's a clear view of the dim livingroom and there was a man sitting on the armchair. It was Mello, and he was crying.

I watched him swallow his Adam's apple. His teeth were clenched so hard that the bones in his jaw were bumpy in new places and his face was like a stranger's. He was gripping his knees like he was trying to scoop the caps up with his fingernails.

It was dreamlike and horrifying to witness him. I went backwards, back into the bedroom, and stayed quiet.

Later in the morning, he came in to wake me up by kissing me and I kept my eyes closed to let him think I was really sleeping, and then wrapped my arms around him like I was seeing him for the first time, feigning waking. I had this lingering fear of him. I wouldn't look at him while we fucked; kept my eyes closed. But then when I did look at him he was the same as he had been before the incident in the morning, which was an immense relief.

'How was work?' I asked him. I was confused by the possibility of him being sad; it implies he's been hiding something from me but worse it implies that I haven't actually known him as well as I thought and worse it implies that I've been neglectful and ignorant of the way he truly is.

He told me that it was basically the same shit as every day.

**17** **J**a**nuary** **2010**

I don't have a personality.

Mello was telling me about how he was hanging out with some people when he left Wammy's who helped him find power. His ability to recognise and manipulate the dynamic in a group of people is one of his greatest and most terrible skills. We were eating takeout and he was telling me about this time in his life that I hadn't been apart of between slow, deliberate chewing.

I just stared at him while he told me about the club he hung out in. He'd only told me some parts of this particular aspect of his life without me, since, I mean... there's obviously a lot to cover and only so much time we have to talk. It was a promiscuous story and I started to wonder if it was supposed to make me feel bad or jealous.

'I was in Vegas.' I said, during a pause. 'I looked in clubs a bit. I guess I had a hunch you'd be in clubs.'

'You were 15.' He said. 'How were you in clubs?'

I said, 'same as you I bet.'

And he said that there was no way I'd done what he'd done, not even half.

'Well, we were doing different shit, sure.' I conceded. For example, I'd been doing drugs and he is always sober. For example, my best sex before I found him again had been a handjob in a handicap stall which I'd chickened out of halfway through, and he'd apparently learned the Kama Sutra by heart just so we could have this talk and I could get pissed off.

'Seems out of your comfort zone, Matt.' He said.

I'd shrugged, but I don't know if it was. I don't think anything is like or not like me. I was watching Mello quite intensely and listening to him talk about how he found his sense of self and his expression in downtown LA and had remade himself not in L's image but in his own. It was such an invigorating story. It was a story to write a book about or something. It was like... gritty, and weird, and cool. I couldn't even wish I'd been there because I think I would have ruined it. I would have been like "don't hang out with those people, spend time with me" or like "spend more time in the apartment".

So, I was realising that I sort of don't contribute anything. It's just that Mello is this awesome enigma, and he keeps me around because I want him to, not because he needs me. That's why I get lonely: I can't keep myself company. That's why it was easy for him to leave me and be with himself and it was devastating for me to lose him.

When I said I love him, after he'd done the dishes and I'd lay down on the couch, he walked over and leant down to kiss me and said he had only ever loved me, and had thought he was doing the right thing back then, but he was happier with me here now and wished he'd had me all along. Then he left for work.

**19 January 2010**

Mello back alive and angry. Apparently I was supposed to have been doing a job while he was off doing his shit. It's his fault he texted the wrong phone and didn't even try any of my others. I told him I wasn't using the 9821 number anymore because I gave it out to a bunch of scammers for a laugh, and I use 3304 or 7183 for work now. I was like 'do you even listen when I talk?' and I got a little huffy about it, I'll be honest.

'God dammit, Matt!' He said. He screams from the eyes, never had to raise his voice more than a touch. 'What is the fucking point of having you here if you can't do something as simple as picking up your fucking phone?'

He's incredible when he's angry. He isn't usually properly angry with me, and even if he is I always assume it's because someone else pissed him off but they aren't around to yell at. But he's so incredible. Like a black hole. He sucks up all your attention so he's the centre of the Universe. Oh my God, I actually love it a little bit, I can't believe I still feel that way but Christ it's magnificent.

So I shrugged and lit up. I said 'I told you: I don't pick up that phone. It's been off since April. Maybe you should write this down since apparently your memory's shit.' I was sort of goading him into the argument but I always do that to make sure he knows I'm not bothered by his temper, you know? It gives him an out later, so he can say, 'well, Matt, you're a bit of an asshole, too.' and we can both be wrong and then we can move on together as equals. You know, be even. Also, I can be a bit of an asshole. I also said, 'I didn't hire me.' This so that he could say that I had, basically, hired myself, since I'd stalked him and given him no choice but to put me to work. Then I could be sheepish and say, like, 'aw shucks, but I can't stay away. Hey, I'll do the job right now. I bet I'm done by tomorrow morning'. But he must have had a really bad day because instead of playing along he looked murderous, grabbed my ear, and pushed me backwards into the wall so my head cracked against it.

I didn't know what to do. I wasn't really hurt, but it had made a sound that was somehow louder than his yelling from before and quieter than my breathing. It had sounded really bad.

He looked like he'd taken a big breath and then choked on it. I sort of wanted to say 'it's ok' or take his hands and say 'I'm sorry' but I did nothing, which is what I usually do.

He asked 'are you ok?'.

'Yes.' I said. 'I'll do the – whatever, the job.' I must never have stood in that exact spot in the kitchen before. I was looking over Mello's shoulder and realising that from that angle our house looks ugly as tits. It is so ugly. No wonder he's always on my case about febreezing the windows. We have heavy curtains to block the sun in the bedroom so we can sleep whenever we want, but then for some reason we put them in the livingroom, too, and they make the whole space look like a rotting trap. The carpet is multicolour and dark and dirty – when did we start wearing shoes inside? Obviously it was when we started wearing boots with a lot of annoying laces, but I just mean... fuck. That's why I said 'and I'll do the vacuuming.'

'That was wrong of me.' He said.

'It's fine.' I said.

'It's not. I'm sorry.'

'Ok.' I said.

'I would never - ' He sort of mumbled.

'It's chill.' I said.

'I won't.' He said. 'Again.'

'Sure thing.' I said.

'I wasn't thinking.' He said. 'I didn't mean to.'

'I was probably due for a concussion, anyway.' I lead a pretty safe, sedentary lifestyle right now so it's been a long time since I had one, that's why I said it. I never think before I talk. I thought it was funny but it made him frown.

'You don't have to work on the case. I don't give a fuck if you work. I won't give you jobs.'

'Jeez, fired already?' I said. 'I want to help. I love you.'

'Pick up your phone, then.' He said.

'Well, I don't pick up 9821.'

He nodded. I was wondering if he'd say that he loved me because I thought I deserved it, or maybe I needed to hear it, because I'm supposed to the special one, right? but he must not have felt good doing that in light of the circumstances. It was so awkward. What do you fucking do? Except pretend it never happened? I feel bad for us. I feel awful for both of us because now this has happened and we have to live with it.

We haven't really touched or talked today except for that. Mello made spaghetti and I did the job. Spaghetti is the worst pasta shape. I prefer, like, macaroni or those little bows.

What a shit fucking day. I feel like nothing has ever happened before this and nothing else will ever happen, like this is a self contained 24 hours. This can't just be a piece of my life. I was also bored out of my skull all afternoon and I just ate 9 tylenol.

**21 January 2010**

Wammy's was near a church. Anglican. I want to say it was an Anglican Church kitty corner to the mansion. Every Sunday we could hear the bells ringing. It's definitely one of those things that becomes a part of your landscape, and I noticed the absence when I left. It's Sunday today and I'm alone with the buzzing refrigerator and the TV.

Mello never went to church at Wammy's and he could have if he'd wanted to. When I tracked him down again after he left me I was surprised by all the crosses he wears now. I think Jesus would have been crushed by the enormity of the cross in our livingroom. It takes up the whole wall. I don't sit on his chair because I'm sort of scared it'll fall on me and that would be such base irony. I would be mortified.

Mello says he's doing things 'his way', but I can't tell if that means he was catholic all along and keeping it to himself because he thought being religious wouldn't fit the L mould or if he's just a goth.

He was gone again in the middle of the night. I woke up naturally at like 0400 and turned the AC up in the apartment, and then drank coffee and smoked in the sliver of dawn that slips out one side of the blackout curtains. First time I haven't gotten to say I love you before he left.

I threw out everything in the kitchen that was rotting today. I keep forgetting to eat the stuff in the drawers in the fridge. It feels empty in here.

**24 January 2010**

I was stating to get upset about how unknown he is, how vague the shape of him has become, how my ability to predict and compute him has gone out the fucking window since I found him again. For a moment I was worrying myself thinking I loved the him from years ago and that I don't know him at all now so I can't possibly love him, in truth, but while I was thinking that and lighting up at the window watching the people on the street, he came home, threw his boots off, and then walked gently over the dirt on the carpet towards me to hug me.

And he said, 'Is there anything I did right?'

I let my ashes fall on the carpet. I always do that. If we ever have a house and a good life I'll stop, I'll learn to be cleanly and careful.

'I want to fix it.' He said in my ear. 'I could, I would fix it, Matt.'

Personally, I don't think anything will be fixed or resolved and I don't care. I think he was talking about our argument but also our entire... thing. But this is obviously the way we are. I'll say I'll stop leaving ashes on the floor for the next 20 years and then die of lung cancer or liver failure or overdose and he'll probably never touch me with the same confidence ever again.

'You're fine.' I said. I'm not a good talker when I'm taken by surprise, so I said that instead of something less stupid.

It's shitty doubting him. I jump as high as I can when he nags me to. But my doubt's not a reflection on him, it's a reflection on me. I don't know that I can change. I've been feeling so blank. There's really nothing to be done about me. I seriously don't know who I am supposed to be. I look at Mello and I think about how he knows himself and has these self validating facts about himself. He can say "I am a temperamental person. I am a writer. I am an avid reader. I am a leader. I am a gay man. I am a Mafioso. I have a strong sense of personal fashion. I know the image I show the world and I am confident that that image shows others the truth. People's first impression of me is usually an accurate assumption about who I am. I am in control of the face I show my peers. I am a dynamic, complex, and interesting person with varied interests and a broad knowledge of culture." But I'm just like... I own a lot of gaming consoles and I can lick my own elbow and I don't know.

He was so nice today. Careful to be nice. Attentive. I haven't looked him straight in the eyes for a while and I felt afraid that now he would see that I've been festering here and becoming mould. He says he's staying until we kidnap Takada.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I contradict myself constantly. I want him here all the time so I can feel alive in his presence but I don't want him to see that my routine is to sleep most of the time and sit around slouching and being down the rest of the time. I need a call to action. I'm looking forward to kidnapping Takada.

I said, 'I'm kinda excited to get out of here.'

He said, 'That's not like you.'

**25 January 2010**

Oh, and I forgive him. I forgive him for walking out of Wammy's without ever saying a damn thing to me. I forgive him for never loving me enough to sacrifice anything for me. I forgive him for never trying to contact me, I forgive him for letting me crawl back to him like a simpering maggot and make a fool of myself in front of the only person whose opinion of me matters. I forgive him for never being home and never pioritising me and never noticing that I'm miserable now. I forgive him for hurting me and I forgive him for making me jealous of strangers he fucked when he was younger. I forgive him for spending years living happily in the assumption he'd never see me again.

Also, compared to all the good he's done by me these things don't matter. I've been whinging about being lonely and sad and unseen, but he'd been crying in this apartment and I'd never done a thing to find out why. So I'm a hypocrite. I can't just complain about how I want to be done right by and never do anything right by others. I really will stop leaving ashes on the floor. I'll start doing all the things I should, so we can know each other like we used to.

All day, he was in sweats and a tank top. And he stayed home with me. He sat on the couch and not in his chair. We watched TV. I said that I thought his best was always good enough, and fuck L. He said he loved me, too.

It was exactly like what I think it'll be like when Kira gets his brains blown out.


End file.
